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Facebook. Twitter. Foursquare. Yammer. Tumblr. LinkedIn. XING. Meetup. MySpace. And that’s just a start. Social media is huge in our world. In fact, it has changed how we communicate, meet people, share photos and even do business.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have taken a break from all of it. I logged off of Facebook. I gave up tweeting. I didn’t even yam on yammer. In fact, I’m pretty sure no one even knew where I was because I cut Foursquare out of my life. No blogs were written. I deleted the apps off of my phone. I literally went on a social media fast. I had a very specific goal in mind. There was something missing in my life. All of the social media stuff had just become noise for me. Time was being wasted. And to top it off, I wasn’t hearing from the most important “social connection” in my life. So I want to tell you a little about what I learned during my social media fast.

I would give you an accurate time frame, but honestly, I’m not sure what that time frame is. What I can honestly say is, that this has been going on way too long. So in the following examples, just insert “way too long” as a time frame.

For (time frame), I could tell you what the latest YouTube fad video was. But I couldn’t tell you what God was up to.

For (time frame), I could tell you what was going on in many parts of the world. But I couldn’t tell you how God was working in my world.

For (time frame), I could point you to blogs, websites and resources all over the net. But I couldn’t point you what God was saying.

My goal was to get my priorities back in the right place. I replaced all of my social media time, with time with God. Instead of updating my status, I spent some time hearing from God. And something amazing happened. I began hearing from God in fresh ways. Everything began to change for me. Things were much clearer. I began to have a very clear sense of the things I had to do as a campus pastor. It was one of the best things I have ever done, spiritually speaking.

I’m convinced that we can fast from more than just food. Fasting is a spiritual practice where we give something up in order to hear from and get closer to God’s will for our life. For me, it was fasting from social media that is just what I needed. My last update on social media was September 15th. My fast began on the 13th. I updated on the 15th to simply say that God was already showing up in a big way. And what a great three weeks it has been.

So what did I learn?

I don’t need social media to survive.

I need God to survive.

Social media is fun, but it’s not life.

Time is precious and how I spend it needs to be watched, closely.

God speaks to us when we are as intentional about listening to Him as we are about spending time on Facebook.

Many of you may be wondering; will I be back to social media? The answer to that question is, “Yes.” I will be back to social media. But I will be back with a much clearer perspective on how and when to use it. I will have a plan in place to make sure it doesn’t take over my life. So for those of you who follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr or Foursquare, you don’t have to fear. I’ll be back soon.